Namekian with a Fluffy, chapter 1
This is a Fluffy?
Flute was sent to the planet Earth with a single objective: To blend in and lay low. At the moment however, he felt like he wasn’t doing particularly well.
Step one had gone alright. He had hidden his space ship in a small grove and made himself a disguise that mainly consisted of a trenchcoat and a really wide hat. The clothes made it hard to look natural on a hot summer’s day, but it wasn’t like he had much choice in that regard.
After all, Flute was a space alien. Specifically he was from a race called Namekians, but the basic appearance was the same: Green skin, antennae, long ears, fangs … There was no way to pass for a human unless he claimed a really weird tan.
(He could have claimed it was a Halloween costume if planet Namek celebrated Halloween, and if it was not in the middle of summer.)
And so, covered from head to toe, he had ventured to the closest town to find lodging. The buildings were much too square for his liking, but he knew a bit about humans thanks to several intergalactic visitors, so he was prepared for their quirks. He had even been given a pouch of gold from his village elder, as humans enjoyed monetary barter.
What he had not been prepared for was the living, doe-eyed pile of fur that latched onto his leg the moment he dropped his guard. “Hewwo nice mistah! Can yu be nyu daddeh?”
“What?” Flute stared down awkwardly at the being. It had a face. A snout. Thick brown fur that made it look like an overgrown coconut, complemented by a cream mane. And while its pronounciations were messy and lisped, it was clearly speaking the Common Universal Language (English). And it was asking him to adopt it.
“Pwease?” added the fuzzy being, its adoring gaze growing ever larger as it wasn’t met with a ‘no’. “Wiww be bestest fwuffy evew! Wuv yu, daddeh!”
“I- I can’t-” Flute tried to pull his leg away, but the furball was hugged on so tight it was pulled along. He then tried shaking it off, but that just made the little thing laugh about ‘wobbly funsies’. “I’m not ready for an adoption, I uh…”
“Dat’s otay! Fwuffy wuvs daddeh anyway!” chimed the living coconut, who wasn’t about to get the hint anytime soon. Sighing, Flute reached down and grabbed onto his accoster, pulling it away from himself and placing it back at the mouth of the alley it had come from.
“I can’t take care of you,” he told it as slowly and carefully as he could. The fluffy thing’s face, which had lit up like a sun the moment he touched it, fell like a dropped lightbulb. “Someone else will, I am sure.”
“Bu’ daddeh,” whined the coconut. “Nee’ wubs.”
It wasn’t like he didn’t feel bad, but Flute couldn’t afford to become a parent to … whatever this was. Not right now. “Just wait here for your real dad, okay? Okay.”
As he continued on though, looking for any hint of a place to stay, Flute noticed more and more of the strange creatures. Clad in every color under the rainbow they wandered on their own among the humans, some free, some on leashes or in bags. Nobody was paying them any mind and the furry beings invariably babbled in a baby-like English, talking to their humans or each other or even to random items around them.
It slowly dawned on Flute that if he was to blend in, he had to figure out just what those things were.
“Wook daddeh! Dat’s a siwwy hat!” called a pink and copper fluffball carried in someone’s arms, pointing a stubby limb at Flute. “Why am dat hat sooo big?”
“Shush, Gember, don’t point at people,” scolded its dad. “… Damn that is a big hat though.”
Seeing how their attention was on him anyway, Flute gathered his courage and approached. “Excuse me, uh…” He motioned for the fat furball, trying not to draw attention to his green hand. “What is that?”
The human quirked an eyebrow. “Have you been living under a rock or something? Or you a foreigner or something?” he asked, turning out to be more rude than his pet/daughter. Thankfully he seemed to realize this, as he shrugged. “Nevermind. This is a fluffy, it’s like some kind of biotoy. Or like… A man-made pet.”
A man-made, living being…? Flute was at a loss for words, but tried anyway. “Like a robot…?”
“Not exactly. Something like that.” Rapidly realizing that he was unequipped for this conversation, the man pointed across the street. “Look, there’s a Fluffmart over there somewhere, they can explain more there.”
As the man began to walk again, Flute quickly called after him. “Wait!”
“What?”
The Namekian looked sheepish. “… Do you know where I could find lodging?”
“Oh man, you really are a foreigner. Uh, there’s a Bed-and-Breakfast down the street. I think a guy down at the Breaker Street has a couple apartments for rent too.”
“Breaker Street?”
“Yeah can’t miss it, just a couple blocks down. Cross the park… Somewhere around there.”
“… Okay. Thank you.” And so, with a set of what turned out to be mostly inaccurate directions, Flute was on his way.
Getting an apartment turned out to be easy once he found the place - it was a dingy one-room flat, and the landlord was a scraggy old man who called himself Ax. The moment Flute stepped into view the man’s eyes glimmered with interest, which only grew stronger the more they interacted.
When the Namekian brought out his pouch Ax’s eyes were more on his green hands than the money, and Flute got the distinct feeling the man gave him an unnaturally large discount. It was all a little unnerving but he didn’t argue, knowing that this was his best bet for a decent home: It would need some cleaning up, but it had basic furniture and amenities.
Before he got too cozy, though, Flute had one more thing to take care of. The fluffies. He sought out the Fluffmart - easy to see thanks to its gaudishly pastel signs - and carefully entered, looking around.
It was full of color, toys and boxes and tools of all kinds mingled with fluffies like the ones he’d seen before - some big ones were caged, while piles of tiny ones (children?) were gathered in elevated pens. It was disorienting and before Flute could fully get his bearings, a human woman was in his face. “Hey there. Can I help you?”
“What- I uh- I was looking for some information on fluffies…?” Flute took a step back, awkwardly tugging his hat down a little. The woman’s near-suspicious look was replaced with relief and delight.
“Oh, of course! A first-time owner?”
“Er, yes…” Having already faced suspicion for his lack of knowledge once, Flute couldn’t well say he just wanted a pamphlet. Besides, if they really were toys, owning one would help him understand better than just reading about them.
“Okay! Do you already have a fluffy or are you looking to buy?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Great! Since you’re a first-time owner, I recommend the Earthie breed. It’s a little less, ahem… Accident-prone.”
Flute did not like what her tone hinted at, but before he could say anything about it the woman had begun to walk away. “So what color are you looking for?”
“Any is alright.”
“I see! Yes, I know just the perfect fluffy,” hummed the woman, steering away from the penned babies and instead pulling out a caged fluffy in desaturated greens and yellows. “And of course you’ll need a carrier for it, yes?”
Flute had no chance to reply before the fluffy, already inside a carrier, was placed in his arms. Its dark eyes stared up at him through the metal door grate, too close to be fooled by his disguise. “Um-”
“Oh and you’ll need food as well,” added the woman, placing a thick bag atop the carrier in Flute’s arms, soon followed by a much smaller bag. “And treats for good behavior! Have you prepared a saferoom?”
“No?” almost asked Flute, which turned out to be the wrong answer. The saleswoman’s smile widened.
“Well then you’ll need a food and water bowl,” she said as she started adding more things to the small pile in Flute’s arms. “And a litterbox with litter, bed and blanket, and of course a sorry box and sorry stick…”
“Sorry what?” asked Flute. The ‘sorry box’ looked exactly like the carrier, just with a different color, and the sorry stick was… a stick? From nature?
“You’ll thank me later,” assured the saleswoman. “And of course a stuffy friend to deter loneliness, and a set of blocks and a ball, an informational pamphlet and our store brochure, and there! All set!”
The pile was by this point so tall that Flute had trouble seeing over it. Was all of this really necessary for one fluffy…?! How was he supposed to get it all back to his apartment?!
“That will be a hundred and seventy dollars,” the woman in front of him chimed, undeterred. It seemed that before he could worry about getting everything home, Flute had to figure out how to reach his pouch without spilling fluffy supplies everywhere.
“Haaah…” The moment he got home, Flute dumped all his new supplies (except the fluffy carrier) onto the floor and flopped onto his hard bed, throwing off his disguise and sprawling out on his back. Even paying for the supplies had been troublesome, trying to figure out the conversion rate for gold coins to dollars, and he was about ready to end for the day.
“Daddeh?” a tiny voice came from next to him. Flute winced - despite his hesitance, he had somehow ended up becoming a parent anyway. He rested for a moment longer before pulling himself to a sit and unlatching the metal-grated door of the carrier. The fluffy inside didn’t move though, carefully staring out at him. “Gweenie munstah pewson am fwuffy’s nyu daddeh?”
Green monster person… What a name. No use refuting it though, Flute was way too exhausted to bother with an argument on the difference between aliens and monsters. “You could say that. Please, call me Flute.”
“Fu-wute?” asked the fluffy, tilting its head to the side. “Fuwute? … Fuute? … Whuute? Fu-wute… fuhwute…”
Flute sat cross-legged and watched as the fluffy tried its best to pronounce his name correctly, each time failing. After one attempt ended up as a sharp whistle that made him flinch with pain, the Namekian decided to relieve the little being of its suffering. “… If you can’t say it, that’s okay. We can figure out a nickname.”
“Otay daddeh!” The fluffy tapped its hoof to its mouth for a moment. “Daddeh nicknamesie can be… Gweenie Daddeh!”
Though still not sure how to feel about being called a “daddy”, Flute relented. It seemed like that word was inescapable. “So what about you?”
“Wha? Wha Gweenie daddeh mean?”
“What’s your name?”
“Fwuffy nu haf name,” answered the fluffy, gently crawling out of its crate. Careful hope filled its eyes. “Gweenie daddeh gif fwuffy name?”
He had to name it? Flute scratched his cheek a bit, turning his gaze to the ceiling. “Well… Uh, hm…”
He couldn’t give it a Namekian name, could he? It’d feel like he was making the thing into a Namekian citizen. But he had no real idea what human naming conventions were either, or if human names were even allowed for fluffies. All he had to go on was that one fluffy named “Gember”.
“Daddeh nu haf name fow fwuffy?” asked his new charge, dejected, and Flute looked down to it.
“No no, I’m just thinking,” he assured before taking note of its colors. Dull greens and yellows… All at once he realized what it reminded him of. “Oh, I know! Your name can be Porunga!”
It wasn’t exactly a Namekian name, but the name of their sacred dragon deity. Not that the backstory of it mattered to Porunga.
“Thank-yu! Powongka wuvs nyu name!” chimed the little fluffy, jumping in delight. Flute found it adorable, but since it was the name of an actual deity, he felt the need to correct the fluffy just a bit.
“Not Porongka, Porunga.”
“Puwongka,” tried Porunga.
“No, not…”
“Puwuwongka…” Somehow, the fluffy was getting it more wrong than before. “Powunguka? Powung… Pongka. Puwunka… Pouwnga. Puwuong… Pwoung. Powon… Powon!”
“Powon!” it finally settled on, puffing its chest out with the delight and pride of having successfully stated its name. Or what it erroneously believed to be its name, at least. “Thank-yu, daddeh! Powon wuvs nyu name!”
Well, it was close enough, and this way he didn’t name an impulsively bought toy after a deity. Flute smiled and rubbed Poron’s head, petting it. “Good to hear. I’m sure we’ll get along well.”
At least, he wouldn’t be lonely.
